Touch typing is so easy to learn (within two hours), you shouldn't even think about it, if or if not. Just do it. After you've learned it, you will be slower in the beginning, but because you're a writer and have a lot of practice, this will change soon.
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John SmithersNov 24 '10 at 9:17

An extremely useful skill to learn, even if one isn't writing. It is immensely helpful when taking notes in class, because I can literally write everything that is said throughout the class.
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JFWNov 24 '10 at 13:02

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In terms of the initial brainstorming, first draft, and major edits - depends on whether you use a computer for that sort of thing. If you write and transcribe then your fiction might be high quality, but your transcription will take a while.
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justktNov 24 '10 at 16:51

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I'd say it's important if you do your initial drafts on the computer, and completely irrelevant if you don't.
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HedgeMageNov 24 '10 at 19:24

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Rumor has it that Shakespeare couldn't touch type at all.
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JohnFxJan 4 '11 at 23:50

11 Answers
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Yes, for a very simple reason: If you can type blind, that means you have moved all the necessary control to move words from your brain into the computer into your backbone -- where it doesn't need conscious control anymore.

This means your conscious is free to concentrate on your work instead of "Where is the letter w? Press w Where is ... o ... r ... d".

Note: You still lose 10-30% of your brain power if you have to operate a keyboard, even if you can type blind.

Simple experiment: Call a friend over and have him type. Watch how fast your ideas flow and how fast he can type. Switch. Repeat several time. You should notice how your brain suddenly slows down when you have the keyboard.

Certainly, adding tasks reduces the mental load available for other tasks, but as a pretty fluent touch typist (I use Dvorak, so fewer odd reaches, and type pretty much all day every day in my job as a web developer) I'd say it's down around 1-2%, a negligible amount (to me).
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HedgeMageNov 24 '10 at 19:22

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@HedgeMage: Or so you think. Pair with someone and you'll see how much you still loose.
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Aaron DigullaNov 24 '10 at 22:25

I can type blind too, but I'm not a touch typist. Just... very familiar with the keyboard. So... maybe touch typing would be a speed increase. But on the other hand, it would be a bigger strain on my wrists (without a fancy keyboard). So there!
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Jürgen A. ErhardDec 10 '10 at 14:24

I've had people suggest you write long-hand first drafts because it makes you slow down and think about your writing. I don't know if that's a plus. I like writing long-hand because I don't always have a computer and/or it's faster to just pick up a pen and get to work. I don't like then having to type legal-pads-worth of writing into the computer. But I do touch-type.

If you're going to learn, perhaps using the non-QWERTY setting on your computer keyboard might increase your speed. There are various keyboards. I did a quick search and there are even some keyboards for hunt-and-peck people. Realize that the QWERTY keyboard wasn't designed ultimately for speed (most of us are right-handed but the major keys are in the left hand), but since most people learn to type that way, it's tough to switch.

That said, I couldn't imagine having to hunt-and-peck to actually capture a story I'm working on. I get frustrated enough with the mistakes I make as I touch-type.

As far as touchscreen technology, again if it's set up like QWERTY, I can't imagine it's going to make that much difference for speed, accuracy, or ultimate "text quality".

+1 for "QWERTY wasn't designed for speed". In fact, it was designed specifically to slow people down; back in the day, typewriters had a tendency to jam if you typed too fast.
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Jeff KnechtDec 4 '10 at 22:38

@Jeff: That's not true. It was designed to cause common letter pairs to be typed with opposite sides of the keyboard (old typewriters with the "little hammers" would jam if two adjacent hammers were airborne at the same time), which lessened the jamming rate. While it was designed around the machine rather than the human operating it, It was never ispecifically designed to slow someone down on purpose.
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Billy ONealFeb 15 '11 at 20:45

Having taken typing back in high school, I find it amazing when I encounter people who uses computers through out the day who can't touch type. I consider being able to touch type an example of efficiency. First, if you know how to touch type, you can spend less time transcribing things you've written down on paper. Second, it should reduce the amount of frustration you have about typing and lets you concentrate on the work you're doing. If you're less frustrated about the physical act of having to type, this should let you work for longer periods of time at the keyboard.

Finally, when editing, you're looking at what you've written and making changes. You're not looking at what you need to change and then looking down at the keyboard to change it. I think that's a huge incentive to learn how to actually touch type.

I think it did imply the point that if you're bad at typing you can write things out by hand at no detriment.
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Mark EichenlaubNov 24 '10 at 19:59

I think that Mark is saying that this discussion is obsessing over the point a a bit much. But the reason this site exists is to talk about writing tools, techniques, and so on.
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Neil Fein♦Nov 26 '10 at 23:14

In all honesty it could only help your ability to write. Don't under estimate the ability to be able to type without thinking about 'how' to type. When you can get it down it's like the keyboard isn't even then. You can see the same thing in a car, you just decide to turn left, you don't think about how to do it.

If you want to learn there are a number of tying tutors online that can teach in both the standard US QWERTY as well as Dvorak. There's no harm in taking half an hour each day to work through the lessons to learn, or improve, your skill.

As for Dvorak, I do use it myself along with an ergonomic keyboard. I find that it makes typing for long stretches easier on my wrists. On the other hand it might be frustrating to change over if you know how to touch type on QWERTY.

Do you know the case where the speed of doing something delicate were reflecting well on the quality of work? Touch typing will make you a faster writer, not a good one. Neither it will make you a bad one.

I know people who think of touch-typing as a useless skill. "I'm thinking slower", — they say. But the key moment is that you should think and write not at the same time.

Touch typing really helps, because I have to rewrite my text 4-5 times before the final version. On the second time I already know what this text is about, so I only do some clarifying editing. In this case I think exactly faster than I type. And the quality of final text is based on your editing work.

Touch typing is a good skill to have, but it's not essential for being a good writer. If you're writing a novel on the computer, chances are that after a small while, with all the practice you're getting, your typing speed will improve. It may not become lightning fast touch typing, but it won't need to be to keep up with your train of thought. Most people think in sentences anyway, and you have more than enough time to type the first sentence out before your mind can form the next one.

I learnt to touch type about 6 months ago after my wife pointed out that although I was a fast typist, half of the time, I was actually hitting backspace to correct a typo. So actually I was quite a slow typist.

Now that I can touch type, I realise that my poor typing skills before were having a small impact on my creative writing. It was like I was writing in short stutters rather than a steady stream.

I'd recommend you learn. If it doesn't make any difference to your writing life, it's still a useful skill to have.

I would argue that typing isn't an important writing skill at all... unless it is.

I can't write by hand, because I can't write fast enough. I can't make edits on the fly. That being said, there are a great many writers who don't type at all. James Patterson, for example, writes entirely by hand on legal pads.

I've noticed I think differently when I'm typing than when I'm writing, and that typing produces better results. Quite a few others find the opposite. I learned to type at the same time I was practicing my writing, and I suspect this is why the two are so inextricably linked--each was a vehicle for the other. Basically you need to find what works for you.

That being said, typing is certainly an important skill to have, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's a writing skill.

How fast do you need to type in order to write at a reasonable pace? Most people seem to consider a thousand words in a day a reasonable rate for a professional novellist. You do not need to type at a speed of 70 wpm to write a thousand words in day. In order to type a thousand words in an hour you need a typing speed of less than 17 wpm. So much of a creative writer's time is spent thinking about what to write next rather than on data entry.

What is important is typing fluency: not having to think about putting words into the keyboard. Learning to touch type may help achieve such fluency, but spending enough hours at the keyboard will ensure it anyway, and then you'll be fine for writing.

Personally, I have never learned to touch type. Most of what I spent my time writing on the keyboard early in my career was program code, which has rather too large a proportion of proportion of punctuation for touch typing to be an efficient technique. Since I can type at 60 wpm without touch typing, it would now be too disruptive for me to learn a new keyboarding method.

If you can touchtype and spend as assign the least amount of brainpower possible to the actual physical typing, there is undoubtedly less of a barrier for your creativity and ideas to translate across onto the screen.

Dedicating a pen to paper and writing longhand often leaves me with an uncertainty about what to write; I find myself censoring my thought processes far too much, it seems too permanent. With touchtyping I can farm out raw ideas and arrange them how I please in a short period of time.